James Lankford no longer wants to replace Columbus Day holiday with Juneteenth
Last week, in a rare display of compassion and understanding, Oklahoma Senator James Lankford – the more sane and skeletal of our two hardcore right-wing Senators – surprisingly announced he was sponsoring an amendment that would make Juneteeth an unpaid federal holiday in place of Columbus Day.
Yeah, that's right. He wanted to replace Columbus Day with Juneteeth. Considering a good chunk of Oklahoma voters either have a second-grade, mythological understanding of Columbus (or simply adore many of his most heinous achievements), the news took a lot of people by surprise. What is Lankford doing crossing his base?!!! When I first heard the news, I was immediately concerned about the Senator's health:
Well, it looks like Lankford got that temperature checked. Just days after the news broke, he walked back the idea thanks to protests and outrage from the people he needs to be elected to another term as Senator – Derplahomans.
Via his allies at The Oklahoman_:
Responding to an onslaught of criticism, Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford said he had proposed to replace Columbus Day with Juneteenth as an act of fiscal responsibility and that he was not trying to “rewrite history or join the mob.”
In a Facebook video posting late last week, Lankford said, “A lot of my staff and I did a lot of phone calls today just to be able to answer questions from a lot of mad people.
“Quite frankly, I’m not sure they’re mad at me, other than they’re just mad at everybody right now and frustrated because they’re watching our history get attacked as a nation. I’m not trying to attack our history. I’m trying to deal with our finances for the future, as well as to be able to honor our continued history.”
Unless Bill and Ted land their phonebooth on Genghis Khan, how exactly do you "attack" history? I know you can definitely reinterpret it, and develop a more honest and well-rounded understanding of how historical events impacted all people, both then and now, and make a more informed personal judgement on who and what should or should not be honored and celebrated in today's day and age, but attacking it? That's just a stupid, idiotic thing to say to your insecure, unsophisticated base to make them feel like they're victims in a some sort of culture war. I guess it's good to see the Tylenol worked and James Lankford is back to normal again!
Anyway, you can read the entire article here. If you're bored and want to talk more about it, leave a comment or something.
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